Remember MySpace, a.k.a. Facebook 1.0? That old-timey social network that, for all intents and purposes, has been dead since about 2006 or so? Well, the Twitter and Instagram trend of Throwback Thursday (#TBT if you’re one of the cool kids) has been dragging MySpace’s startlingly well-preserved corpse around, Weekend at Bernie’s style, to the tune of 50-plus million visits a month.
Look at this glorious S.O.B. of a t-shirt.

Look at this glorious S.O.B. of a t-shirt.
The World’s Largest Online Photo Repository

According to a new report by those hacks at The Wall Street Journal, most of the several dozen million visitors are searching for old photos still taking up server space on their long-dormant MySpace accounts. Gotta provide those Instagram and/or Twitter followers with photographic evidence of how bad your haircut was in 2002, I guess.

Most #TBT treasure hunters don’t visit the site daily, the WSJ report stated; once a month to once a week is roughly the average, although that’s a heck of a broad “average” if you ask me. Despite Facebook turning MySpace into the BetaMax of social networks about a decade ago, the site is still doing surprisingly well, with more than 465 million email addresses (and therefore members) on file in the United States.

Additionally, in November of last year, the site racked up more than 30 million video views, and tallied 50.6 million users. That’s an increase of almost 600 percent from November 2013.
Weekend at MySpace 2

Like Bernie Lomax’s voodoo-powered body in the second installment of the Weekend at Bernie’s trilogy, MySpace is starting to show some life again. According to MySpace chief exec Tim Vanderhook, the site has actually been gaining new users, as well. Membership has grown among 17 to 25 year olds, drawn by the site’s shift to a focus on music and entertainment.

A new MySpace venture is in the works as well, said Vanderhook, though he declined to elaborate beyond boilerplate explanations that provide no actual insight into the project. Whatever it is, Vanderhook and everyone at MySpace are hoping to pump still more life into the mustachioed, sunglasses sporting, deceased businessman that is their social network.

After getting off to a hot start in 2003 and selling, for $580 million, to News Corp in 2005, MySpace was murdered by the double-crossing, loansharking Mafia goons of Facebook. In 2011, News Corp sold the site to Specific Media for just $35 million. With a new marketing strategy on the verge of launch, MySpace aims to turn that massive math frown upside down.